Menelaus leaned forward, his goblet hanging forgotten in one hand as his gaze fixed on a girl a few places to my left. His lip curled, a flicker of distaste crossing his face.
He didn’t bother to lower his voice. “That one,” he said to the High Priestess, flicking his fingers toward Maris with idle disdain. “Too wooden. The Athenians would mock our court for the rest of my days.”
Maris’s veil fluttered as her head jerked toward the king.
But it was too late as the High Priestess nodded once and two guards appeared from the edges of the chamber, stepping forward. Maris fell back, almost hitting the girl behind her, her arms half raised in confusion.
“No, please,” she whispered, her voice barely audible beneath the music. “I can—just let me—please.” Desperation seized her limbs. She tried again. Tried to sway, to make it sensual, to roll her hips the way we’d been taught. But it was too late.
The guards reached her before the music hit its next breath. One guard grabbed her by the arm, the other took her elbow, and together they turned her toward the door like a misbehaving child.
She wailed the entire way until her cries were abruptly cut off by the doors thudding shut with a muffledboom.
The king leaned back, stroking his chin as he continued to study us. His eyes gleamed with musing delight … and hunger. So much hunger.
The music was greedy against my skin as everyone in the enormous room stared at us.
My body continued to move. The herb curled around my mind like steam over water, softening thought until it barely stirred. I didn’t decide to dance. Isimply was. Heat gathered, aching and urgent, guiding every shift of muscle, every drag of fabric across sensitized skin.
Veils clung to damp skin, concealing faces but betraying the fever of the room. Women arched into one another, hands gliding over silk and skin. Some sank to their knees, crawling across the polished floor with a feline grace, their hips swaying like pendulums, spines bending in offering.
A veiled woman with long obsidian hair fell into a kneel before the king, her back arched as she trailed her fingers up her thighs, her tunic riding high, the sheer fabric hinting more than concealing.
Another chosen twirled in a spiral, her body a ribbon of gold and silk. She reached for the ceiling, then dropped to the floor in a ripple of limbs and breath, rolling onto her back and sliding one hand across her breast, the other between her thighs.
Menelaus’s fingers drummed once against the throne and then stilled. His gaze lingered on a girl across the chamber, one who swayed without rhythm, her steps faltering, her movements mechanical in the midst of fevered chaos. He exhaled, long and loud. “That one bores me,” he said, not even bothering to point this time.
The guards moved instantly.
She didn’t beg like Maris had. Just froze, her veil trembling with her breath as they took her by the arms and led her out.
The doors closed behind her with another heavy, echoing thud.
And the dancing never stopped.
I moved with the others, caught in the tide of hips and breath and moving limbs, my body no longer my own. The music guided me, pulled me deeper. I arched, I spun, the ache in my core driving every motion. This wasn’t just a dance; it was a plea wrapped in rhythm. Every sway of my hips was designed to catch his gaze. Every turn, every sweep of my hand along my throat and down my ribs, was a promise, a lure.
But … it wasn’t working.
Menelaus wasn’t watching me.
His gaze drifted unhurriedly across the hall, from one girl to another, lingering for seconds, never long enough to matter. He drank. He laughed. He said something to a soldier behind him, his attention fractured, lost among the glittering swarm of bodies.
No matter what I did … I was nothing more than movement and color. Just another body spinning in the crowd, unseen, unchosen, forgettable.
No.
The thought cut through the drugged warmth in my veins. If he wouldn’t look, I wouldmakehim. I had to find a way. My gaze swept the hall, searching for something, anything, that might set me apart.
Every woman around me gleamed like a jewel. There had to be another way to be seen. My eyes drifted over the room, the blur of glittering bodies and painted smiles, until they caught on movement that wasn’t movement at all.
Achilles’s arms were crossed, his face completely void of emotion. While every other man gawked and gorged himself on the sight of us, adjusting themselves under their robes, he still looked like he’d rather be doing anything else. His jaw was tight and his eyes were cool and unmoved by the spectacle around him … as if all this beauty barely deserved his notice.
He was the king’s most loyal blade. The God-Slayer’s favored one. The one man in Sparta who bent for no one but his ruler.
If I could makehimlook—if I could pull even his gaze to me—then Menelaus would have no choice but to notice.
The music pulsed, winding through my blood. I turned my body toward Achilles, my hips finding a slower rhythm, my hands rising to trace the air. The haze made everything feel softer, dreamlike, but the intent in me was certain.
